


A Place for Friends

by Fanfic_is_a_sin



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Mind Palace, pseudophilosophical babble, unreality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 07:05:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4253970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fanfic_is_a_sin/pseuds/Fanfic_is_a_sin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will explores his mind palace and confronts the nature of his connections with the people in his life.<br/>(The first and last chapters will feature Hannibal, with a chapter each for the other tagged characters)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Place for Friends

For most people, perhaps, the idea of a mind palace was appealing because it allowed for the exploration of self, of the past, and of the relation between the two. For Will Graham, it must have contained a different attraction. That was how things tended to work for him. Will Graham was always _different_. In this case, he supposed that the difference was how much of his sense of self had slipped away with Hannibal Lecter. He hardly knew himself now. Or, he thought that he hardly knew himself. It was one of the many distinctions that he'd chosen not to focus on lately. As for the past, he was still piecing it together, and still finding that it held as little real interest for him as it ever had. No, Will Graham didn't have much self, or much in his past worth exploring. What he did have were friends.

It was a category that was, like all things, different for Will. He wasn't sure why it was different, but the how of it was easy to pick out. The how was the who, and who was included in Will's list of friends would give anyone but Will Graham pause.

"Almost anyone."

In cold field of high grass that had long since scraped away the clouds to get at the sun, Hannibal Lecter always knew his thoughts. But then, that wasn't so different.

"Almost." Will amended, echoing Hannibal's voice. It always sounded to him like glass or crystal. Smooth, beautiful. Cold. He turned to face the man himself.

Hannibal sat forward in the low, simple chair from his old practice. He always seemed to bring it with him wherever he appeared in Will's mind. He wore a blue suit and red tie. As always, it was sophisticated, but not complicated. Before him was a table, wrought from the head of a deer and the body of a girl, her broken silhouette pierced by the deer's antlers. He couldn't see her face, but he knew it was a face of terror. Her name was Cassie Boyle.

Set delicately on her torso were two plates, pouring steam into the frigid air. Flambé lung. It should have made him sick, but it smelled delicious. Morality, it seemed, could be overwhelmed by practicality. On the other side of the table was second chair, identical in practicality to Hannibal's. As much as Will wanted to think that the chair was somehow different because it was his, that practicality overwhelmed him as well, and he found himself sinking into it as he peered through the steam at the calm, understanding face that somehow even now seemed reassuring. In a way, Will supposed cannibalism was practical in an evolutionary sense.

"It can be jarring, to set the foundation of one's mind palace in a place so open. Walls, windows, doors, carpet. These things ground us." Hannibal looked up, seeming to admire the sky.

That was it. Hannibal was always offering advice. Always moving forward. Always _practical_. He didn't make Will feel different.

"My...mind," Will replied, picking up a fork in one hand and poking at the seared meat on his plate, "undoubtedly has a lot to...puzzle through, at the moment. But with all of that, it somehow manages to make you complain about the lack of carpet."

Hannibal tilted his head, his expression best described as rhetorically puzzled. "Your mind cannot make me do anything, Will."

"Maybe not the real you, but...this you," Will leveled a fork with a chopped piece of lung on its prongs at the other man. "This you is just my mind's projection of you."

Hannibal gave the small nod that always preceded his counterpoint. "Perhaps. But does that really differ so much from the real me?"

Will frowned at him. "I'm not even sure that I know the real you."

"We can never be sure we know the truth of who someone is. But that does not mean we do not know the reality."

Will let himself smile. "Now I know this is my mind. It's...convenient for me to separate truth and reality."

Hannibal nodded. "Truth cannot be practically measured. Reality can. Reality has effect. And the thing about me that measurable effects you is only how you perceive me. In that way, perhaps the real me is not so different from the version of me here, in your mind."

"That's very idealistic." Will pointed out.

"I have always been something of an idealist."

Will let a moment of quiet wind pass between them, the steam clearing and he pressed the piece of lung to his lips and inhaled.

"I think we may have both misunderstood this place," he finally decided.

"How so?" Hannibal asked. The sincerity and benevolence behind his curiosity had always been surprising to Will. Most people were curious about his condition. Hannibal, even at his worse, had always seemed interested in his opinion.

"This isn't my mind palace."

As he said it, the shadow of a building fell over them, and he knew that the field was no longer empty.

Hannibal folded his hands between his knees and leaned forward. "Then what is it?"

Will took a deep breath, glancing at the mangled corpse between them. "This was the first time I saw you angry. You killed Carrie Boyle as a statement. It was irreverent, indecent...this was the first time I saw the difference between you being intricate...and being elegant."

He closed his eyes, slipping the bite of lung into his mouth. He chewed for a while, as the taste went from exquisite to excruciating. By the time he swallowed, he only tasted blood, and his throat burned.

"This is a warning."

When he opened his eyes, Hannibal was gone. Cassie Boyle's body heaved with an empty, pained breath as the deer's head began to rise. From its bloody, rotted neck, dark, scabbed skin stretched out. Limbs cracked and unfolded, sickening and twisted. Then it was there, standing closer than it ever had. The vision of his nightmares. It shook its head once, throwing the broken corpse from its antlers, plates shattering off into the grass. Then it began to trot, heading right for the open door of the suburban house that now stood in the field.

Will watched it rip away the yellow crime scene tape that stretched across the doorway and then trot inside. And, predictably, he followed the trail it had tramped through the grass.

His last chance came when a hand grabbed his ankle, squeezing it desperately. He looked down at the terrified face of Cassie Boyle. She was trying to say something. Warn him? Plead with him? Whatever it was, no sound came out.

 _Of course not,_ Will thought. _He took her lungs_.

He pulled his foot free, and kept moving forward.


End file.
